


desolation and oranges

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: End of the World, M/M, Oranges, Pre-Relationship, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 13:02:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17264717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Some days, when the air is crisp and the birds sing and the sun is a kind warmth on ice-crusted skin, Merlin forgets that the world has ended.





	desolation and oranges

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Polomonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/gifts).



Some days, when the air is crisp and the birds sing and the sun is a kind warmth on ice-crusted skin, Merlin forgets that the world has ended. 

That’s not what the government calls it, the crash of the markets, the collapse of the cities, the rapid decay of entire peoples. They call it catastrophic, unimaginable. They call it “a set back like nothing seen before.” But they never look at their people and say “Folks, the world as you and I know it has ended. It’s no more.” 

But that is what happened, when the America’s sunk into the waters. When islands shot up into the air and rained down in fiery ash on mountains that dissolved like sugar in tea. Merlin isn’t sure there’s a final count for all the people gone. He’s not sure there’s an explanation for the ever shrinking globe he lives on. 

No one has a clue what began it. No theories about gasses or oils, no accusations of radioactive missiles or biological warfare. Some say it is because most of the scientist seem to have vanished. Because the engineers and the mathematicians and the philosophers all were among the first of the people to  _ poof. _

Merlin thinks they just…

Well, Merlin doesn’t really think much these days. He glides from floating mud mass to floating mud mass, digging about for grass seeds and oranges. (Of all the fruits to survive the complete and total collapse of the earth… oranges.) And he searches. 

When the world sighed, shook off most of her weight, Merlin woke up in  _ pain _ . His belly, bloody and clenching and  _ exploding _ with a fire that should not have been his to feel, told him something far more important than reports of rivers boiling over or a sky gone purple at midday.  _ Arthur is home. _

A barge passes him, loaded down with wilted and rotted petals and crosses made of all manner of debris. Merlin pauses a moment, tries to dredge up the sort of heartbreak he thinks he should have for every person represented on that metal boat. He’s got nothing. He’s watched entire generations blink away, some quickly and some slowly.

Sometimes his callousness worries him. Then he tucks away his concern beneath a charcoal heart, sucks the last juice from the carcass of his orange, and shoes the birds away from his coat. 

Arthur is home and Merlin is meant to be finding him, whether the world is over or not. Perhaps, big perhaps that it is, Arthur’s sudden arrival wasn’t the catalyst for the end of everything, but a soft little reset. Camelot’s golden boy always did have a fondness for citrus fruits.

The thought makes Merlin chuckle aloud, a sound that annoys the birds who flutter away. He laughs again, the barge blares its horn, and Merlin throws his sack over his shoulder and hop-scotches his way across the water. 

Arthur is lost and the world has basically ended, but Merlin feels renewed all the same.


End file.
